


Like Dying

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Murder, Saving Harry from the Dursleys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 10:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5330306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One thousand years ago, the Founders sealed themselves within portraits to escape a deadly plague. Salazar awakens the summer before Harry starts Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure I posted the first part of this fic somewhere at some point, maybe in the At Least Once collection. Plays with the same concept as [Immortal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2453297), because dude, wizarding portraits are cool. 
> 
> Warning for murder, character death, dubious morality, mentions of child abuse and neglect, and blatant historical inaccuracy.

Headmaster Igor Karkaroff had better things to do than roam the halls of Durmstrang Institute at midnight. The school kept strict protocol for students' nighttime wandering—once, punishment, twice, expulsion. No student had been caught outside his dormitory in almost ten years. These days, he doled out twice the punishment he'd gotten as a student, an occurrence that got him to be named the harshest taskmaster of Durmstrang Institute since the very first headmaster, a man who had founded the school over one thousand years ago. Little was known about this man, not only because time had erased records of his existence. He came to Durmstrang Island under an assumed name, and named the island and later the school after his birthplace, a small village with no other accolades to its name.

But Igor still roamed the hallways, for it was a source of pride for him to see his charged so obedient. He exited the academy's main hallway and moved up to the second year boys' dormitories, a class that had always given him trouble. They were just too excitable, the little bastards. Finished with one year, they feel like kings—or survivors, as one graduating student had called himself. Igor had given him a rare smile at the title.

Durmstrang was a school for survivors, much unlike the pale-faced, baby-cheeked students of Hogwarts School and Beauxbatons Academy. Why, Hogwarts didn't even teach dueling! And Beauxbatons taught manners like their students' lives would one day depend on them. Durmstrang students either fell in line (literally, as students walked straight lines, sometimes in a march) or were booted out. In his twenty years as Headmaster, Igor had personally expelled four dozen idiots. They had all gone by way of home-schooling or a minor, less reputable school of magic—none dared to appeal to Hogwarts and Beauxbatons. A Durmstrang man had much more pride than that.

Igor made his way to the lowest point of Durmstrang Institute, chuckling quietly to himself. No student dared to be out at this time (and if he did, he better do well to hide himself), and none would certainly go here. It was a room long forgotten by the newest crop of trainees, but it had worked as a secret training room many decades ago. At seventeen, Igor himself had been caught there after hours, practicing spellwork in the dark. He was sent home the very next day. Ironic, that he now walked these same floors as the most powerful man in the school. No matter what, he would always remember his Lord for providing him with the opportunity.

The room was octagonal in shape, an odd design that the historians believed to of religious significance of some sort, lost to the passage of time. Musty old training mats covered the floors and the room smelled little better than it looked. But the very far wall was what lured misbehaving students to this very room. A life-sized mural covered the entire far wall, spanning four meters wide and two meters high. It the mural, a man sat inside a library of books and scrolls, occasionally writing something and shaking his head. He picked a book up occasionally for a closer look, only to throw it sideways as if not finding an answer in it.

The man, a redhead, looked too wild to be caught in a library of sorts at first glance, but once one looked for long enough, one saw that he belonged there. It was not a depiction of Durmstrang's library, however; to Durmstrang's shame (they had never been able to rid themselves of the mural, and the wall itself could not be brought down without bringing the sea in and the school down with it), they had a painting of Hogwarts' library inside its borders. An act of a patriotic idiot, some presumed.

Others said this man was the founder of Durmstrang, a man by the name of Durmson. Igor only knew that the man, who did more sometimes, never spoke a word. Sometimes fuzzy murmurings could be heard, like the scene was behind a heavy glass, but never words. The man never looked up from his work, either, unlike now.

Igor stopped in place when he noticed the man looking up. Not just up—straight at him. It did not seem like a delusion, but Igor cast a quick wakening charm on himself as a precaution. When the man still stared, Igor had no choice but to speak, "Good evening, resident portrait."

The man stroked his red beard. "A good evening it is, monsieur."

A Frenchman? In an English library? In his castle? Igor huffed with a renewed determination to break down the wall. Rumors of the man and curious questions had no place now. Except— "I wonder if you might answer me this question. I asked a long time ago—I don't know if you remember—who are you?"

"A long time ago? Yes, you've grown. I wonder if you might indulge me in something before I speak. Cast a spell to brighten this room. I have not seen my school in centuries."

"With your permission, we could have you moved." Igor did as the man asked, casting a blue fire that lit the room in pale light. The man's eyes lingered on Igor's wand, but he did nothing more than watch with a curious expression.

"Thank you. I would like that, to see the world again."

"Your school?" Igor prompted. Were the rumors true? Was this the lost founder of Durmstrang, of whom they knew so little? "I am the headmaster of this school. My name is Igor Karkaroff."

Igor made a move to speak—perhaps to assure the man that he hadn't let the school fall to the wayside in its founder's absence—when he noticed something odd happening. The oil strokes seemed to be shifting up and down and protruding outwards. The lines of the man, originally murky and unclear, a clear sign of Romantic painting, deepened and straightened into a photograph-like image. It was remarkable. Igor had never seen anything like it.

Caught up in his interest and the anticipation of finding the answer to his question, Igor didn't notice the first strings of tiredness creeping up on him. Subconsciously he put them onto his recent sleepless nights, plagued by nightmares of the Dark Lord and the war.

While his mind threatened to bring Igor away from the moment, the portrait kept changing until a bulge appeared under the paint. The bulge rose and rose, and along with it came the lines of the painting, wrapping around the bulge.

The first stroke of nervousness rushed into Igor. "What are you doing, portrait?"

"I'd like to speak with you," the man said, and Igor noticed something odd about his voice. It was deepening, hollowing, changing as he spoke and the bulge grew into a humanoid shape.

That was what it was. The man was stepping out of the portrait.

Igor felt a burst of pain in his heart. "What— The light. You didn't need a light." The man had candles in his office while he read. He needed no light. Portraits needed no light to see humans, as they weren't human themselves. They were beings of magic, ones who took their strength from ambient magic in a room, such as the magic of a light being lit. Igor's fingers trembled as he whipped his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the man who was slowly killing him.

"Stop," he ordered in one last attempt to find this man's secrets. But when his shape became almost human, Igor had no choice. A scholar he was not, and curiosity had no place in his castle. " _Avada Kedavra_!"

The line of green light hit the man square in the chest, just below his heart, but the man did not collapse. Igor hadn't used the spell in a decade, but he knew he wasn't rusty. This was something else.

The man in the portrait raised his hand toward Igor. The light that illuminated the room flickered once, twice, thrice, and completely went out.

With it, Igor Karkaroff slumped to the ground, his body the shell of the man he used to be.

The man in the portrait, no longer a painting but a flesh-and-blood man, smiled. "I suppose I'll indulge you. My name is Salazar Slytherin."

Igor gave no response, and Salazar stepped over his body, uncaring of how his robes trailed over the man's face.


	2. Chapter 2

Salazar stayed at Durmstrang Institute only for a moment before flashing out of the castle, to a spot one mile away, to the edge of the woods that bordered the left side of the island. In the distance, he saw his precious castle stand tall in the early morning, illuminated by faint strands of sunlight, crawling out from behind it, creeping onto the castle.

In the cover of the trees, Salazar finally let himself show insecurity. He pulled on each of his fingers, making sure each worked, and stretched his arms over his head and out akimbo. His whole body was sore from centuries of sitting in the same position, but everything worked. It was a miracle that his spell had worked quite so well.

Opening his mind in a relaxed pose of mediation, he found that he couldn't feel the minds of his brother and sisters. Good: Salazar was the first to awaken. Perhaps he wouldn't awaken his friends just yet; he wanted to explore this new world he had found himself in, starting with that odd dome of black smoke from the mainland.

Sniffing, he realized even the air felt different. There was something under the smell of salt and sea, something ugly and base. Salazar walked to the far edge of the forest, exercising his newfound ability to move, until he reached the sandy end of his land. He hadn't bothered to tell the man he'd sacrificed that not only did he create Durmstrang, but he also formed the island it rested on. The school, the land… They may not remember it, but all belonged to him. It was no matter; he would be happy to remind them of their lord.

From there, he saw the edge of the mainland. Had the man, this Headmaster of Salazar's school, allowed the island to float so close to civilization? Salazar shook those thoughts away. First, he would explore, then find what had happened to Durmstrang and Hogwarts—and maybe Beauxbatons, depending on if he could stomach so much gaudiness.

He shifted his body into nothingness, and propelled himself to the farthest point he could see: the water line a few miles down. A second later, he was there, standing on the water with only his magic as support. He opened his eyes as wide as possible and laughed from the very edges of his body and mind. This was true freedom.

Had anyone seen him, they would have thought him a madman. (Or a god. Salazar was fine with both.)

He kept shifting and jumping until he saw land, Helga's territory, at the far point of his vision. It took him four hours to reach the mainland, and he fell onto the sandy beach with an undignified slump onto his back, staring up at the wide sky. The air smelled stranger here, but the sky was just as beautiful. Helga would love this land. It hadn't gone to ruin, so he took hope that Hogwarts hadn't, either. Helga would despair if she found her castle in ruins.

"Oi, mate, that's a private beach you're on!"

Salazar whipped around, his hands on the hunting knife at his side, but the man across from him was unarmed and likely not magical. Still, how had he not noticed him? His senses must have decayed with all that oil paint and fumes.

"Good day. I would like you to direct me to Hogwarts castle," Salazar said.

The man gaped at him, his eyes drawn first to the bulge of a weapon at Salazar's side and then to the robes Salazar wore.

"Forgive me for my dress," Salazar said, realizing his fashions must be a millennium out of date. The headmaster had said nothing about his clothes, but then, he'd had other things on his mind.

The man shook himself from his daze. "Nah, it's fine. We've had a few robe-people around. You a priest or something?"

Salazar shook his head. "About Hogwarts..."

The man shrugged. "Sorry, can't help you. No idea what you're talking about. Is that in Sussex? Castle... are you a tourist?"

Salazar sighed. It seemed his task would be harder than he'd thought. He would go directly to the castle, but his memory was playing tricks on him. Nothing seemed similar—the houses on the beach, those boat-like things in the water, the tall buildings he saw in the distance. Salazar couldn't rely on landmarks anymore. He had no idea what Hogwarts even looked like; had it changed along with everything else?

"Yes," he said, hoping this word, tourist, would convince the stranger to help him. "Can you help me?"

The man pointed to Salazar's right. "Well, that's the exit off the beach. We're a small community here, no castles anywhere. But I know there's some up north—" he pointed in the direction Salazar assumed was north "—like Edinburgh, Stirling, that sort of them. You probably mean one of them."

"Of course," Salazar replied, and made his way away from the water.

"Good luck, priest!" the man yelled from behind him.

When Salazar felt he was out of sight of the man, he flashed forward to the farthest place he could see, a larger town with many more people. Magical boxes carried the people of today, Salazar realized, staring at the odd things. No one wore robes; he would have to change his own quickly, and acquire a pair of… peasant's trousers, but tighter. He grimaced.

Just as he was ready to flash forward again, he heard a sound at the edges of his mind. Opening his mind, he heard the familiar whispered hisses of parseltongue.

"My descendants," Salazar murmured, a brief smile on his lips. The sounds stopped for a minute (the other person was probably replying) and Salazar readied himself to teleport to them. Parseltongue, not only a way to speak to snakes, spoke on a frequency no other language matched. A frequency that, if Salazar and the other speaker willed it, could connect them through the space of countries. And when Salazar caught onto it—there it was!—he could teleport within a boat's length of the speaker, whether he was in Salazar's line of sight or not.

He appeared with the barest whisper of a pop, leaving behind the confused stranger around him. Let them wonder; Salazar didn't care what these magicless beings thought of him.

Moments later, he was far away, standing inside a dark, cramped location. Muggles could obviously use light—they had some intelligence inside their heads, after all—but for some reason, they chose to leave them dim in this location. Instead, they pointed beams of light at snakes behind glass. Salazar pair little attention to the caged animals; people had been doing such things for longer than he'd been alive. Instead, he searched for the speakers.

A young boy caught his eye, though what about him it was Salazar could not say. He was dressed simply, and his clothes seemed even worse than the garb of all the others around him. Like other children, he was staring intently at a caged snake.

But unlike the others, the boy hissed, "What's your name?"

The snake flicked its tongue at him and answered, "I do not have one. Do you?"

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter. Do you… want a name?"

"No. It is much easier to be without one," the snake replied.

Near the boy—Harry—but focused on another cage, were a man, a woman, and another boy. They were Salazar's other descendants, he assumed. His line had lost their red hair, Salazar thought with some regret. He couldn't make out his features in the boy—and he was glad he didn't see himself in the man. Neither did the woman resemble his mother, sisters, or daughters.

How… disappointing. Perhaps they had even lost their magic.

He focused on the older two, hearing their mundane dialogue with ease, and only looked back at Harry when he heard a loud shriek. The glass barrier had vanished and the large snack had no trouble leaving, and the boy stared at it with shocked wonder on his pale face. Nearby, men, women, and children fled the area, yelling. _It is merely a serpent,_ Salazar thought, but it wouldn't help. The magicless people would still fear it. He was pleased to see his descendant give the snake a wide grin.

He was less pleased with the punishing grip Harry's father took on his shoulder. It had been clear by the boy's shock that it was simply a matter of accidental magic, and his elders seemed to be much too angry for a childish accident. But perhaps wizards had changed in such a short time; he hadn't seen a single one. Perhaps they had chosen to blend in instead of outwardly flaunt their magic. Perhaps they had finally listened to Salazar's words of the dangers of magicless beings.

He expected the older man to hiss at the boy, telling him of the dangers of unknown snakes, but the man only pulled the boy and yelled angrily. He did not act like a descendant of Salazar.

He followed his descendants out of the snake home and into a wondrous area filled with animals the likes he'd never before seen. Salazar had never been one to travel far from his ancestral land; he'd run into sea monsters, wild kneazles, and drakes, but he'd never seen an animal half otter, half duck.

Vowing to come back at a later date, Salazar hurried after the family. They clambered into a metal contraption. Salazar followed the family's device, flashing forward when he needed to, until they reached a series of homes.

The homes of this era were decidedly odd, Salazar thought, standing across the path and to the side, out of his descendants' line of vision. He wasn't sure that he wanted to get in contact with them; suddenly, he was unsure about many things.

In his thirty-six years, he had never seen such identical-looking houses. He had never thought humans might want to build houses that differed only in the shades of flowers planted in their gardens. Everything else, from the metal contraptions to the windows to the boards looked the same. He wondered if it might be a form of camouflage, like the animals did to hide from predators. It made little sense; humans were at the very top of the food chain. He may dislike and fear the magicless ones, but he knew enough idiots to know magic had very little influence on one's intelligence.

He knew not how long he stood there, only that the day grew dim and he would have to make a decision soon. Sleeping on his feet would not be an auspicious beginning to life in this new era.

The day had only just begun to dim when the boy opened the front door of the house and looked both ways. Salazar obligingly lifted his invisibility.

"I saw you following us," the boy, Harry, immediately said. "What do you want? Are you going to hurt my Aunt and Uncle? Because I won't let you."

Salazar stepped closer, until they were nearly toe to toe, but the boy didn't step back. Instead, he only closed the door behind himself and stood firm against Salazar's gaze. "You would protect your relatives? Even when the treat you badly?"

"Yes. They're—maybe they don't like me, but they're my family. I won't let you do anything to them."

He was so stubborn, so self-righteous, that had Salazar not seen him speak parseltongue he would've thought him to be one of Godric's spawn instead. Salazar had loved his family, as much as one could love people who didn't truly understand him, but had he had the opportunity as a child, he would've hurt them back in the same way they hurt him.

A little hardship was good for children; his own parents did worse to him than his descendant's seemed to do. Godric's were very fond of flogging. Rowena's simply locked her in a tower, as though life in a nunnery could ever be fulfilling for a woman such as her. Helga didn't stick around to find out, leaving when it was clear her kin would never give her leave to become a knight.

"I am their ancestor. It is within my right to purge my line. Especially of ones such as they, unfitting to hold my blood within their veins. They've allowed themselves to become fat and untrained."

"No," Harry said, his green eyes bright and strong. "I won't let you do that. They're innocent people. You can't—you can't do that to them."

Salazar took a step forward. Harry's flinch was comforting, but determination did not leave his eyes. _He looks like Godric,_ Salazar thought, and his resolve crumbled, unable to withstand the memory of the man who had been his brother in all but blood. "Will you beg me?" he asked, running one long pointer finger along Harry's jaw, which ticked but didn't swallow.

"If you need me to," Harry replied, his voice finally gaining just a small thread of fear.

Perhaps it was this time's culture, but they seemed so quick to kneel and beg. Where were the warriors of Salazar's time? But even as he had the thought, he knew that it took another kind of strength to bow to someone.

"Very well," he told the boy. "They will not be harmed."

"Do you promise?"

"I do," Salazar said, and let his magic bind him.

It was a silly promise, but it calmed the boy. Now that he was free to be curious instead of scared, Harry asked, "How did you follow us? You just appeared and disappeared! It was like…" He trailed off, looking uncertain. "Like magic," he eventually said.

"That is what it is."

"Aunt Petunia says magic isn't real."

Salazar removed his staff from an enchanted compartment in his robes, and nodded with approval at the way Harry stiffened. Even if he didn't seem to be familiar with staffs, he must've realized just how dangerous one was. But when Salazar only used it to tap himself on the shoulder to change his robes into something more modern—if he was in this time, he supposed he'd have to adapt—Harry gaped.

"Magic is quite real," Salazar told him. "You have it too. You must."

It would be... horrifying, if his bloodline had diluted so much that Harry was only capable of parseltongue and the barest traces of accidental magic. Salazar could move oceans and sing whole armies to sleep and almost nearly compete with Rowena in magical chess. He would not accept mediocrity from his blood.

Harry grinned. "I think I do," he began, and told Salazar of the many things he'd done.

It was nearly an hour later that Salazar decided to take the conversation inside. He knocked sharply on the door. For the first time since Salazar's promise, Harry looked scared. Salazar ignored him.

"I am Salazar Slytherin," he told the woman who opened the door. "Your ancestor. You will house me for the night." His words went against every law of hospitality and nicety, but Salazar couldn't quite care.

This time, Harry just barely stifled his grin.

And when morning came, Salazar wasn't surprised to see Harry join him as Salazar stepped across the Dursleys' threshold. The rest of the family watched him from inside, hatefully peeking through the curtains without any subtlety at all. Although Salazar hoped Harry was descended from the woman's line—her looks were slightly more pleasing than the man's—he barely accepted them into his bloodline at all. Even their other child only avoided being purged from the line by Harry's promise. It had been a true hardship when the boy attempted to loudly berate him for not coming with presents for him.

"Can I come with you?" Harry asked.

Salazar turned back and nearly smiled when he saw Harry already wore a pack with his belongings. The cheeky brat. "Did you receive permission from your elders?"

"Yes. Aunt Petunia said she wished you'd come sooner and Uncle Vernon said good riddance. I didn't tell Dudley, but I don't think he'd really care. Except for now he has one less person to try to beat up."

"Come here, then," Salazar said. He extended his hand and Harry took it with a grin. "I will teleport us to our future home. Durmstrang Castle seems to be unaware of whom it belongs to, but that will be corrected shortly."

And without a sound, they were gone from Privet Drive.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned. For some rambling about where this fic could have gone, go [here](https://greenmornings.tumblr.com/post/168628329131/hello-you-asked-for-it-and-im-currently-in-a).


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